As I’ve mentioned before, I am revisiting whole wheat flour in the bread. As the ratio goes up, I’ve decided to strip out the supplemental fun stuff and just focus on the dough until I can get it working right. This week was 50% whole wheat.
200g all purpose flour (King Arthur)
200g whole wheat flour (Montana Wheat)
300g water
100g starter
11g salt
10g olive oil
The dough came out nicely. It was in a good mood in the morning and while it had to wait in the fridge while we ran errands, it seemed to be quite happy after warming up in the afternoon sun.
However, as you can see in the photo, the loaf did not expand as much as I expected. Maybe it was because it was baked in a 350f oven because we were cooking some other items. Or maybe it’s just the whole wheat flour. That said, it rose well enough that I’m going to go to 75% whole wheat next week. I expect to run into some bad loaves as I keep pushing it up to 100% over the next month, but I intend to get some good 100% loaves before dialing it back to a happy sweet spot.
Even if the rise was not as explosive as I would have liked, this bread tastes quite good. With 50% whole wheat, it is starting to take on a distinctly whole wheat taste. It’s not one I necessarily like, but I don’t dislike it either. In lesser amounts like my old standard of 15% to 20% whole wheat it definitely adds a very nice complexity to the loaf. I’m curious how I’ll like the flavor as the ratio starts to reverse.
